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How is AI Changing Your Patients’ Experiences?

Posted June 8, 2018

The amount of available digital data is growing at a staggering pace, doubling every two years. In 2012, it encompassed 4.4 zettabytes. By 2020, the data created and stored annually will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes.

What does this Big Data revolution mean to healthcare – and how will it impact the average’s patient’s experience?

The world of Big Data is so huge that artificial intelligence (AI) is fast becoming necessary in order to keep track of it all. In fact, AI is already found in several areas of healthcare. This trend will continue to accelerate, in areas ranging from the design of treatment plans to medication management, drug creation and more.

Mining Medical Records

An obvious application of AI in healthcare is data management. The AI research branch of Google recently launched its Deepmind Health project, used to mine medical records data, thus providing better and faster health services. It is currently being used to improve eye care treatment.

Designing Treatment Plans

IBM Watson has launched an AI project for oncologists, which provides evidence-based treatment options. It does this by combining attributes from patient files with clinical expertise, external research, and data.

Cognitive Assistance

An IBM algorithm called Medical Sieve is an exploratory project to build the next generation “cognitive assistant” with analytical reasoning capabilities and a broad range of clinical knowledge. It is qualified to assist in clinical decision making in radiology and cardiology. For instance, Medical Sieve can analyze images to spot and detect problems faster and more reliably.

Online Consultations

In Great Britain, Babylon has introduced an app offering medical AI consultation based on a combination of common knowledge and a patient’s medical history. Users report their symptoms and the app checks them against a database of diseases, using speech recognition. After taking into account the person’s history and circumstances, Babylon offers an appropriate course of action. The app also reminds patients to take their meds, and follows up to see how they’re feeling.

Health Assistance and Medication Management

The medical start-up Sense.ly has launched the world’s first virtual nurse. Her name is Molly and she’s recognizable by her smiling face and pleasant tone of voice. This interface uses machine learning to support patients with chronic conditions, in between doctor office visits. It provides proven, customized monitoring and follow-up. And the AiCure app supported by The National Institutes of Health uses a smartphone’s webcam and AI to autonomously confirm that patients are adhering to their prescriptions.

Drug Creation

Developing pharmaceuticals through clinical trials can take several years and cost billions of dollars. Atomwise uses supercomputers that root out therapies from a database of molecular structures. When Atomwise launched a virtual search for medicines that could be redesigned to treat Ebola, it found two drugs predicted by AI technology, which may significantly reduce the virus’s infectivity. This analysis, which typically would have taken months to years, was completed in less than one day.

The possibilities are limitless, as medical advances happen at the speed of light. As a healthcare leader, it’s important to keep up with it all as you keep your workforce and company on track. The Northwest’s leader in healthcare job placements, MedicalPros Recruiting & Staffing provides access to the tools, talent and resources you need to stay on top of the competitive game. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.